ForumsQuestionssubtask showing up weird


subtask showing up weird
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mathieu

Posted: Sep 19, 2008
Score: 0 Reference
When I first open toodledo, whether in project or context view, if I have a task with subtask, it shows like this:

<multitaskicon> first subtask
<normalicon> second subtask

Then, if I click on the the multitask icon, I see the master task and the subtask.

What can I do to just see the master task?
Jake

Toodledo Founder
Posted: Sep 19, 2008
Score: 0 Reference
Can you please send a screenshot to [email protected] so that we can see what you are describing?
Dav

Posted: Sep 21, 2008
Score: 0 Reference
I see this too. It seems to only happen under certain filtering situations. Some examples:

On the hotlist, if both tasks and subtasks are "hot" (i.e. included by the logic of the hotlist) they show up separately. Likewise on the main>All Tasks screen, subtasks will show up separated from parent tasks. Or similarly, if you have a starred subtask, but the task is not starred, only the subtask will show up in the "starred" list. Same the other way around - a starred parent with non-starred subtasks will not by default have the subtasks listed there (and the subtask icon is pale).

The above is not a big deal, though, the real glitch is that if you click on the "subtask" icon of a parent task or subtask, the other tasks in that bundle will relocate to wherever the clicked task is located. This can seriously mess with, e.g. sorting by due date... a no due date task can relocate more immediate tasks down to the "no due date area." And there's no way to undo this.

It could make more sense to toggle between grouped / ungrouped tasks (perhaps next to the show / hide subtasks link?). In addition, when tasks were grouped, it would probably make more sense for things like due dates to be considered as the soonest due date of the bunch.

I've sent screenshots of this to [email protected]

This does not seem to happen outside of filtering... for example, if I'm viewing the folder with a task with subtasks, everything shows up where I'd expect.

I think in the end, there's no obvious "right" behavior here. It's a little weird, but in the end if you have different contexts, due dates, starred value and so on, filters have to treat parent tasks and subtasks separately. Here are some simple examples and site behaviors that would support them:

1) I have a parent task with a due date, but subtasks which have no due date...

I'd probably, e.g. want the subtasks grouped under the parent task, and be grouped with the other tasks with the same due date as the parent. This would lend itself naturally to the parent task showing up exactly once on any given view. Alternatively, the entire group could just show up at the soonest due date of the bunch.

2) I have separate due dates for subtasks...

I'd probably want subtasks sorted in with the other tasks that have the same due date as the subtask itself.

Behavior (2) is close to what the site does now, and the "weird" behavior would go away for most people if, for example, your subtasks simply inherited the date of the parent. A nicer but more complex solution might be to have the auto-filling of due date from the parent by default (which I suggested in another post!) - which would make a default behavior of sorting with the parent task, but would allow "breaking" subtasks into different sorted locations.

In the case where the user chose different due dates for different subtasks, the parent task could show up at multiple points in a filtered or sorted list with each (or each group) of subtasks.

In the case where subtasks all had later due dates than the parent task (which would be a little non-sensical) you may also want the parent task to show up by itself under that sooner date (or likewise under it's own folder, context, etc. if different from all subtasks). However, this kind of illogical behavior should perhaps be ruled out? One possibility would be that _only_ subtasks _or_ parent tasks could specify a given field (though perhaps the user could sometimes have one or the other). For example, perhaps the parent task would specify the folder (or other field), and subtasks would not be able to change the folder. But the parent task may leave the due-date (or context, or ...) unspecified, and the subtasks could then specify different due dates.

This is a little confusing, I know - I'm having trouble figuring out how to describe things without showing them. So if someone else can explain better -that'd be great!

But it's clear to me that the logic between tasks and subtasks needs a little polishing!

Hope this helps!
Jake

Toodledo Founder
Posted: Sep 22, 2008
Score: 0 Reference
If you click on a subtask to load the parent, the parent will be temporarily loaded in that location so that you can access the information. This is just a temporary convenience and does not mean that the information for that parent task has been modified to fit in that section.

In the folder view, subtasks are always nested under their parent, but in the other views, subtasks are flattened out on purpose. This is to prevent an important subtask from getting forgotten because it is hidden inside a parent task.

Hope that helps to explain it.
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